MARKEY: Leap of Faith on CA Waiver Decision Too Great Even for a Leap Year

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Contact: Select Committee, 202-225-4081

MARKEY: Leap of Faith on CA Waiver Decision Too Great Even for a Leap Year

WASHINGTON (February 29, 2008)– More than two months after the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it planned to deny California’s right to regulate global warming pollution from vehicles, the agency today finally released the official decision documents containing its formal legal decision.
 
“On Leap Day, the Bush administration is asking us to make a leap of faith: that we should believe that their decision to deny California, Massachusetts and other states their right to limit global warming pollution from vehicles is based on anything other than politics,” said Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-MA), of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

EPA’s decision document claims that California was unable to demonstrate any “compelling and extraordinary conditions” to justify using its Clean Air Act authority to set higher global warming pollution standards for California. The reality of California’s potential impacts from global warming, unfortunately, is much more harsh than the Bush administration realizes. Because of the state’s large area and varied geography—from desert to snow-capped mountains—scientists say that California could witness a range of increasing impacts from global warming:   from wildfires, as has happened throughout the West, to decreased snowpack in the mountains, which has already been witnessed.

In light of  California’s history of special clean air needs, it has the authority under the Clean Air Act to go beyond national federal standards, and has done so for pollution controls on smog and other harmful pollution. Internal EPA documents have revealed that senior EPA staff recommended that the agency approve the waiver, but this advice was ignored in the final waiver decision.

“To say that California doesn’t have a ‘compelling reason’ to regulate global warming ignores the Supreme Court, it ignores the climate crisis we all face, and it ignores the rights of states to decide how pro-active they want to be on pollution control. In fact, as we have learned from internal EPA documents that have been recently released, this decision overrides the legal views of the professional staff,” continued Chairman Markey.

“This country has benefited time and again from allowing the states to go beyond minimum federal standards. The administration’s insistence on denying this waiver says that no matter what the president said when he signed our new, strong CAFE standards into law last year, he’s still stuck in first gear. This denial substitutes politics for science, fails to protect the public health, and is a sad retreat on the progress that Congress is making on combating global warming.”

A recent study by the California Air Resources Board said that California’s emissions standards would result in better gas mileage and emission reductions by 2016 that would be about double those projected to be achieved under the new 35 mile per gallon federal fuel economy rules. The report said the rules would eliminate 167 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in California between 2009, when they would be implemented if given the Federal go-ahead, and 2020. Without the rules, the federal fuel economy standards alone are projected to prevent half of those emissions by 2020.

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